the tragedy of the commons

Question

1. Hardin stated, “[The] commons, if justifiable at all, is justifiable only under conditions of low-population density. As the human population has increased, the commons has had to be abandoned in one aspect after another”. What does he mean with this statement?
2. Hardin stated, “The rational man finds that his share of the cost of the wastes he discharges into the commons is less than the cost of purifying his wastes before releasing them. Since this is true for everyone, we are locked into a system of ‘fouling our own nest…’.” How would you respond to this statement?
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Answer 1

Hardin's "tragedy of the commons" is a classic environmental issue (or problem). Assume several ranchers share a range, and they all want to graze as many cattle as possible. Although there is an agreement that each rancher will only graze 10 cows, each rancher sees that there is sufficient fodder for him (and him alone) to sneak in one more cow, and incrementally increase his output. Unfortunately, ALL of the ranchers have the same idea and they ALL graze 11 cows rather than 10, and the range is overgrazed and is badly damaged.

In the fishing example, it would be similar if there was an agreement on how many fish each fisherman can take, but they all cheat. One fisherman cheating would not destroy the fishery, but ALL fishermen cheating would destroy the fishery.

This is not actually an issue of greed. It is more an issue of marginal benefit. Human beings naturally give priority to their personal interests. Each participant wishes to maximize their marginal benefit from a resource, and do not want to destroy that resource, but the cumulative result is that the resource is over-used, and this over-use may damage or destroy the resource.

This "tragedy of the commons" indicates the need for the resource to be regulated, and its use policed, to assure that everyone plays by the rules and that the resource is NOT over-exploited. This is the basic rationale for "take" limits of fish and wildlife, and for grazing allotments to specify the number of cows that can be grazed. In a perfect world - with perfect information on the resource and perfectly effective policing - government regulation could preserve the resource indefinitely. In practice, if you don't know how many fish there are, or how well they are reproducing each season, then your take limits may be too generous - and there is constant pressure for agencies to err on the side of allowing MORE resource exploitation rather than LESS exploitation. So, even with government regulating resources, most of them are in decline.

Answer 2

1. Humans, by nature, are greedy. Under low population density, such as a man utilizing his pond for fishing, the fisherman makes sure to NOT overfish the pond. He wants to make sure that fish continue to reproduce and maintain the maximum carrying capacity for that pond. Under higher population densities, humans have less desire to maintain carrying capacity because they have to share with other people. This causes overfishing to a point that the number of fish are unable to replenish themselves.
2. Basically it’s saying that the cost of disposing of waste elsewhere is more expensive than disposing in the commons. While one person’s waste may be small, this leads to everybody following suit and doing the same thing. When everybody contributes a small amount of pollution, it becomes a lot and the commons is destroyed.